The Steveston-born music-video director had his first taste of the online buzz when he collaborated with Miley Cyrus, producing interactive dance videos that blazed through the social feeds back in 2008.

“A couple of my friends were working with her and they had this idea to do this online dance battle with the cast and crew of Step Up 2,” Walliser says over the phone from Los Angeles. “Miley and the Step Up movies were becoming really popular, and she didn’t even ask me — she just said, ‘You’re doing it, right?’ And I said, ‘Of course I’m doing it.’

“It was a pro bono thing rehearsed in one day and then we shot it and put it up online. We didn’t think anything of it; we just made the best video we could. It just took off instantly and got a million views in 24 hours. It was one of the first instances where a really big star was doing something online, merging celebrity with connecting with fans.”

Walliser’s latest coup was hooking up with pop sensation Katy Perry to produce six video interludes to be used on her California Dreams tour, which stops in Vancouver at Rogers Arena on July 19.

“Katy saw the Pink tour and she loved the symbolism and how creative it was, so she hired the same tour director and then he brought me on to do the video content,” Walliser says. “It was her moment to do something big and huge, her proving-ground moment.”

A quick glance at some key shots from the video series reveals a package closely related thematically to Alice In Wonderland and Willy Wonka, taking Perry’s signature candy-coated pop look and giving it a deeper storyline.

“Her wonderland is ‘Candyfornia,’” Walliser says with a laugh. “It’s a mythical world built out of candy and sweets and treats.

“I got a voicemail from her telling me the story off the top of her head about this girl who works for this mean butcher and who always dreamed of opening a bakery, longing for the baker’s boy and then she finds herself in this Candyfornia land — this huge 10-minute recording. I had to take that and construct something tangible that would be broken up into six little videos that could play during costume changes and in between acts. The design was up to me, but I knew what she wanted to do. It was very collaborative.”